Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Here's a lovely bit of news to start October with: Chris Riemenschneider reports in the Star-Tribune that he interviewed Tommy Stinson by phone this week for a feature that will run this weekend about the reissues and Tommeny mentioned that he had been in Minneapolis last week, doing what, you ask? Well, being in the studio with Paul Westerberg and Michael Bland:

He sounded enthusiastic about the sessions and said, “It was a lot of fun.” When I asked if they did any recording, though, he answered, “Nah, that’s getting to first base. We’re sort of still in the dugout chewing gum.” As for the general state of the two former ‘Mats mates relationship, he said, “We’re good friends, and I’m sure we’re going to work together again.”

It feels like they are moving ever so slowly closer to some kind of reunion, doesn't it? Guess we'll just have to wait and see, but that's some damn interesting news.

• Some interesting comments from Paul at "I Shot a Man in Reno",which is the blog for the book "I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease, and General Misadventure, As Related in Popular Song" (aka "Book with the longest sub-title EVER").

The author, Graeme Thomson, tried to interview Paul for the book but wasn't able to. He did recently interview Paul for The Guardian in conjunction with the UK release of the Sire reissues (look for the interview in early October) and got some comments from Paul related to the book's subject, including this one: "Hank Williams, half of his songs were about going down three times and coming up twice. I've always loved that. It’s good to know that I’m not alone. But I feel like I'm damned to live! That's the problem. Only the good die young, which means I'll live forever."